Pat Narduzzi didn’t pull out X-rays of Kenny Pickett’s injured ankle and display them in front of his computer for reporters on Zoom to see.

But he did talk about his quarterback’s injury Monday — a slight upset — and he didn’t rule him out of Pitt’s next game Saturday at Miami. (He didn’t rule him in, either, so he wasn’t totally transparent.)

Actually, Pitt’s coach opened the first of his three chats this week by declaring, “Happy Monday.” Quite a salutation for a coach on a two-game losing streak, with a quarterback and several important players uncertain to play against the nation’s 13th-ranked team.

But Narduzzi seemed encouraged by what he saw Sunday when Pickett reported to Pitt’s training facility with teammates.

“He’s banged up,” Narduzzi said. “He was a lot better (Sunday) than I thought he might be.

“We’ll see what happens in practice this week. He’s tough, and it’s going to be hard to hold him out, that’s for sure.”

Fans can read into that by assuming the coach expects Pickett to play. And well he might play, given he finished the Boston College game on a sore ankle, converting two fourth downs with his legs.

But “banged up” isn’t how you want your quarterback to be when it’s time to line up and play. How Pickett and his ankle respond during the next three days of practice will determine his availability.

Pickett injured his ankle Saturday on a scramble in the third quarter of the 31-30 loss to Boston College. It’s not unusual to see Pickett run toward open spaces when his receivers are covered, events that happened far too often against the Eagles.

Pickett leads the team with five rushing touchdowns, including four 1-yard sneaks. Vincent Davis is Pitt’s leading rusher with 74 carries for 235 yards, but Pickett is No. 2 (45/119) on a team that doesn’t build many quarterback runs into its gameplan beyond read-options.

Does the 6-foot-2, 220-pound Pickett run too much for his own good? Narduzzi likes a pocket passer as much as any coach, but he doesn’t want to limit his quarterback’s competitiveness.

“You’d like him to maybe throw it away if he doesn’t like what he sees,” the coach said. “I wish he’d just stay in the pocket because he had a guy wide open, even on that play (when he was injured), over the middle.”

But he admitted, “It’s hard to sit in the pocket and take a sack.”

Pitt’s average of 1.8 sacks allowed per game is fifth-best in the ACC (nine in five games).

“When you’re a competitor and you’re tough like him, you’re going to compete,” he said. “I could tell Kenny to run out of bounds and take a knee. He ain’t taking a knee. That’s not Kenny Pickett.”

The next question on a team that has plenty surrounds its backup quarterback situation.

Narduzzi has used three in the past year when Pickett was injured or shaken, starting with then-redshirt freshman Nick Patti, who played the entire game in a 17-14 victory against Delaware and briefly in the UCF game last year.

Patti, who has thrown for 301 yards and three touchdowns in six games, was hurt for a while in training camp this year, allowing redshirt freshmen Davis Beville and Joey Yellen to move up the depth chart.

Beville got the call in the Louisville game, throwing one incomplete pass. Yellen, a transfer from Arizona State, entered for two snaps Saturday at Boston College while trainers tended to Pickett under the medical tent.

Counting mop-up time in the Austin Peay game, Beville is 3 for 6 and Yellen 2 for 3. Hardly a sample size large enough to determine anything.

“You don’t really grow until you get your feet wet,” Narduzzi said. “I wish we had a pure No. 2 right now, but we don’t. If any one of those guys ever had extensive time in a real game, then I think you’d find out.

“If you throw a couple picks during the week as the backup quarterback, you’re probably not going in. I’m not saying anybody did that, but I’m giving the hardest example. Who’s locked in? Who understands the gameplan better? Who fits into what we’re doing that week offensively?

“It comes down to the practice week and a gut feeling of what you’re doing well and what you need to do.”

It’s a week shaping up for Pitt’s coaches to keep a sharp eye on all their quarterbacks — the starter and backups.

Get the latest news about Pitt football and all things Panthers athletics.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)